Aug 15, 2006 By Dave Stofcheck 6 min read

Laurel Highlands donned pads Monday for the first official day of fall sports practice. After a strenuous summer in the weight room, the Mustangs and coach Jack Buehner took to the playing field in preparation for the upcoming season, Buehner’s 14th running the show.

The day was filled with highs – and lows – but through it all, Buehner kept things in perspective.

As early evening approached, Buehner knew he had taken another step in putting the tumultuous past nine months behind him.

Area high schools took to the playing fields in earnest, as football, golf, cross country, boys and girls soccer and girls tennis teams began putting the pieces together of what they hope will be a successful fall season.

Buehner was just happy to be on the sidelines, given the events that have transpired since last November.

It was then that Buehner was diagnosed with colon cancer. Fortunately, the cancer didn’t spread and in December, Buehner had 15 centimeters of his colon removed but didn’t need to undergo chemotherapy.

“I went back to work and started doing all the things I could do as far as exercising,” Buehner said.

Then in May, on the day before Election Day, Buehner was involved in a serious automobile accident and suffered multiple fractures to his ribs, separated his left shoulder, suffered a punctured lung and a lacerated spleen.

To make matters worse, Buehner’s injuries were so bad he needed to be transported by medical helicopter to Presbyterian University Hospital, but the weather didn’t cooperate, and Buehner instead was taken by ambulance.

As his lung began to fill up with blood, a tube was inserted to help drain the liquid.

“It was a slow, and very agonizing process,” Buehner said.

Buehner remained in the hospital for 10 days, and today is only about halfway to being fully recovered.

Still, halfway is a lot better than how he felt three months ago.

“Some people might say I’m very, very unlucky,” Buehner said. “Honestly, I feel I’m one of the most fortunate people in the world. Laurel Highlands just went through the Relay for Life, and whether it was the cancer or the accident, things could have turned out much, much worse.

“One of the things I had to look forward to is being around these guys. Being able to work with them, it’s a situation you look forward to. Being around young people excites me. It really does help.”

Once practice did begin Monday, it was pretty much the status quo Buehner has become accustomed to during his tenure at LH.

“As first days go, you have your ups and downs,” he said. “It’s to be expected. Sometimes you go in with fantastic ideas, but no matter how much strength and conditioning you do, nothing is like putting on the pads.

“We have a schedule that we go over with the offensive and defensive coordinator. Every five minutes is accounted for. You can plan all you want and prepare all you want, but you always end up altering it. As coaches, we know the system because we’ve been doing it for years, but we will probably have to scale back for the kids because we have to get down to the basics.”

At Mapletown, long-time coach George Messich opened another camp.

Mapletown is one of the state’s smallest Class A schools, having graduated just 46 kids this past spring.

“I think it was a pretty typical first day,” Messich said. “We had 32 kids and I thought the weather was pretty good. Probably like most teams, we were a little rusty.”

The Maples will scrimmage Clay-Battelle (W.Va.) this Saturday and are practicing in two sessions, a morning and an afternoon.

“You work on fundamentals,” Messich said. “You get an idea from the first day on the prospects you have coming back. You like to see if you have the maturity from players from 10th to 11th grade and from 11th to 12th grade.

“I think that’s obvious the first day.”

Geibel Catholic and coach Angelo Dippolito got an early jump on practice, hitting the football field at 6 a.m.

The rugged Dippolito suffered a minor setback, having to leave practice because of a leg infection and go to the hospital.

But the injury won’t keep Dippolito down for long.

“I’ll be back (Tuesday),” he said. “I’ve only missed a few practices in 43 years.”

The Gators, like the Maples, usually don’t have an advantage when it comes to numbers.

This year, Dippolito had 22 players for the first day of camp.

“It was a typical first day,” he said. “We don’t have very many kids, and we have a lot of work ahead of us. But we have kids who have a lot of heart and want to be there. They’re willing to learn and I’m pretty happy with that.”

Geibel began practice earlier in the day than most teams because recent high temperatures had Dippolito worried.

“The heat earlier in the month kind of scared me,” he said. “I thought it would be best to get in as much work as possible before the heat. You want to do some work in the heat, but you don’t’ want to beat the kids up either.

“On the first day, we just like to see who came to hit, who our surprises are, who our disappointments are and what are some of the things we need to do to try to improve the team.”

Not all of Monday’s practices took place on the football field. Waynesburg Central golf coach John Garber had his team play nine holes at Rohanna’s Golf Course in preparation for next week’s section opener.

Everyone, including PIAA co-champion Rachel Rohanna, is back from last year’s team, making Garber’s job a little easier this early in the season.

“Monday was about seeing how many new kids I had,” Garber said. “The kids who are coming back know the procedures and know what practice is all about and what we expect.”

Area football teams will open the regular season, Friday, Sept. 1.